Painted expressly for the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, the picture and its bloody detail
shocked the
art jury; ultimately, it was displayed among the
medical exhibits at the fair.
THE NEWS THESE DAYS is rarely good, but two stories in recent editions of the newspaper were truly
shocking: a posse of 15 policemen had stormed the Contemporary
Arts Center in Cincinnati and, temporarily, closed down the traveling exhibition «Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment»; and further,
medical researchers had suggested that the drug thalidomide be reintroduced on the market as an effective therapeutic treatment